Almost Shot and Killed AirBnB Guest

[Kathy842]

   My neighbor bought a North Dallas home for short term rentals. In addition to the 3 rooms he rents, he converted the garage to a 4th rental in this home.  He chooses not to maintain the outside of this home. His fence is rotten and falling down and it seems he will not cut the weeds until he gets a notice from the city. 

   March 22, I was watching TV in my sunroom when a man entered  the gate in my backyard wearing a mask.  He saw me through the window, then turned around to exit the gate. He stayed by my garage for about 15 minutes, walking around looking for a way to enter my home. He repeatedly tried the keypad on the garage.  

   I called 911. My door was unlocked because I had the TV antenna hanging outside.  I was afraid to open the door to retrieve the antenna to lock the door with him outside. I had my .38 loaded with the trigger back in case he entered. If I had stepped away, preventing him from seeing me, I'm afraid he would have entered the home and he would have been shot and killed.

   After the police left I  reviewed the cameras and deducted this was my neighbors AirBnB guest. My neighbor will not post pics of his rotten back fence, so his guest have no idea what to look for when taking the alley to find the property they booked. The neighbor only sends a pic of his garage door with an arrow pointing to the gate not shown. This picture looks like many other garage doors in the area. Navigation directions will not pinpoint the correct address when entering the alley. I have reported this to AirBnB but they will not get involved to encourage him to post pictures of the back of his property for guest to identify. AirBnB is on notice that this is a serious safety issue and a guest might get killed if they enter my home. I do not want to kill anyone. I don't want this trouble. I will be detained/questioned and sued at the minimum. If someone enters my home I will not have time to research if this is a meth addict or AirBnB guest. I hate being in this position.

   Background: A mile from my home, Dallas is having a growing population of people pitching tents, living in the city and begging for money at the busy street intersections. I hope to never have to take a life but will do so to protect myself and family.

[Sarah977]

@Kath9  I sense Kathy was being sarcastic. I don't think she has any intention of getting rid of her guns.

[Kath9]

@Sarah977, duh! I did wonder whether that was too good to be true.

[Fred13]

   If anyone is wondering how America became such a 'gun culture' (beyond being a hunting one), consider this....    

   Dating back to the 60's the U.S. started not holding its most violent members amongst them  responsible for their action, when the mentality emerged that the actions of even outright criminals must be someone else's fault. Legally, the 'temporary insanity' defense lunacy took roots and became rampant. Where weakness prevails in any society, the most aggressive will take full advantage.

    This gave rise to a level of crime (with guns, knives, what have you) that a supposedly civilized society had no business allowing in the first place. Imagine after 6 decades of this insanity. One thing leads to another.

   At that time there were an estimated 150 millions guns at the hands of citizens, today close to 400 million.  Good luck rounding up enough to prevent the criminal agents within such a society from getting to them or using them. Now both camps have become armed.

   During 2020 because of Covid, entire prison populations were let loose on the public so they do not get Covid-19 and hope by some miracle they changed their ways out of gratefulness. This is a laughable mentality if it wasn't so dangerous.

   Few private citizens here in Belize had guns till just recently, only the criminals did (of course) and used them with impunity since the sentences where but a revolving door of hand-slapping for decades;  now private citizens are being allowed to have them, since the police will never get there in time.  Now the police is out to crush the criminals and now crime is being taken seriously and the 'happy' criminals are already thinking  twice about breaking into any place (or landing on an island) with ill intent. 

   The point: hold your criminals responsible all along the way, physically remove them from an otherwise lawful society and  you won't have the need for a 'gun culture' to rise in the first place.

P.S. Be busy this week, helping the fellows at the new Coast Guard station (some are Special Forces armed to the teeth with AK-45's) set up by the government two weeks ago a mile from our island and we private citizens are setting up a solar system, refrigeration, lightning, etc for them to make their lives better.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

What shocks me the most in your post is this @Kathy842  "... My door was unlocked because I had the TV antenna hanging outside..."   WHAT???

So you had the gate unlocked and the house entrance door unlocked although you live in a dangerous city and you are so afraid of strangers that you are ready to kill???? 

Sorry, but this is crazy.  I live in a building with a locked entrance door and intercom, I know all my neighbors in the building but the door of my apartment is always locked.

[Louise0]

Yes, I wondered about that.  To be so fearful of the outside world that you believe you need to own gun but to watch TV with the front door wide open to improve reception just sounds bonkers to me.  

[Louise0]

There's little evidence that owning a gun makes you any safer.  What it does do is make you more likely to use it to kill yourself or accidentally kill or injure a member of your household.  There are much safer and more effective ways of protecting yourself in the home than owning a gun.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use-2/

[Quincy]

Post removed as requested by OP